Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t know how to make Republicans more appealing

On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, host Candy Crowley asked Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) why unemployed Americans, or workers making minimum wage, would become Republicans.

“If I am an unemployed American and or if I am a minimum wage worker and I hear from Republicans that, ‘You know, we should go ahead and do that provided we do the following three things,’ and it’s a caveat approval of extending those [unemployment] benefits, or if I am a minimum wage worker and I see Republicans who say, ‘You know what? It’s artificial, it messes with the marketplace, it might mean some teens can’t get into the job market,’ why would I become a Republican?”

“How do you message that,” she continued, “in any way to reach out to those who are disinclined to sign up for the Republican Party?”

Gov. Walker did not reply to her specific question about Republican outreach, instead saying that “what people want is freedom and opportunity … the great thing about this country, greater than just about any country in the world, is that you have an equal opportunity, but the outcome’s up to you.”

“The problem,” he said, “is too many Americans right now don’t have that equal opportunity, and we should be making the case about how we’re going to make it easier to create a job, easier to get in the workforce, easier to get the skills that they need to fill those jobs.”

Crowley responded to his boilerplate Republican rhetoric by asking, again, how “this expand[s] the Republican Party, which desperately needs to bring in something other than what’s really been a shrinking base in your party?”

Gov. Walker replied by repeating, in slightly different words and with a different example, his earlier comments about freedom and opportunity.

About the Author

Scott Eric Kaufman is the proprietor of the AV Club's Internet Film School and, in addition to Raw Story, also writes for Lawyers, Guns & Money. He earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California, Irvine in 2008.